Chapter 15

And you thought my beard was big.

-T-shirt

Steel

“Where’s Winnie?” I asked Tally.

Tally pointed in the direction of the breakroom.

“Eating lunch,” she said, eyes on a chart. “Don’t keep her too long. She has to be back for Peter to take his lunch, and he likes to whine to the charge nurse—me—if he doesn’t get his full hour.”

I snorted. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Tally looked up over the rim of some reading glasses and glared. “I’m serious, Big Papa. I have like, eight hundred thousand things to do, and listening to him whine is not one of them. He’s seriously the worst.”

My brows rose at that. “Okay.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?”

I shrugged. “I’ve never steered you wrong before, have I, Tally?”

Tally snorted, and I chose to take that answer as a no, before I walked down the hall to the break room.

My eyes scanned the area as I walked, and I nodded my head at Tommy Tom, who saw me through the part in one of the curtained off rooms.

I stopped and turned, then went back to the room where Tommy Tom was holding up an X-ray film in the air below a light.

“Tommy Tom?”

He looked over at me while still holding the film in the air.

“Yeah?”

“You got keys to the break room?” I questioned.

He shook his head.

“What about a supply closet?”

He pulled out a set of keys and tossed them to me.

“No, but I do have keys to my office. You know where it is,” he answered.

I grinned as I caught the keys.

“Thanks,” I muttered, turning on my booted feet and marching toward the break room at a much faster pace.

Contrary to what Tally thought, I wouldn’t make Winnie late. However, I never said anything about not getting her messy.

I just hoped that she’d finished her meal because I had plans for the rest of her lunchtime.

Which—I lifted my wrist—by my count, was about twenty-two minutes.

I’d tried to get here earlier so I could share that lunch with her, but I’d been held up writing not one, not two, but three tickets on my way to the hospital. One was to a teenager who was barely out of diapers, another was a single mother—who I let off with a written warning solely because she had a screaming infant in the back seat—and then there was the dick with the black, jacked up truck. Chicks could be dicks, right?

This woman in her big black truck had refused to allow me to cross the street with Cody this morning, and then, this afternoon, when I’d seen her blow past a stop sign, I’d taken it as a perfectly good sign from above that she needed a ticket.

When I ran her plates, I saw that her tags were expired. So not only did she get a ticket for running a stop sign, she also got one for her expired tags—and expired insurance.

Though, she assured me that she actually did have updated insurance cards, just not with her.

I wrote the ticket anyway, and then she flipped me off and called me a pig.

That was just the icing on the cake of my already shitastic day.

I needed Winnie in my arms. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to bury my face in her hair and inhale. I just plain wanted her…which downright scared me.

I never needed a woman.

Women were pains in the asses—my ass especially.

I didn’t have the time, nor the inclination to deal with them, yet I was finding myself making an exception for Winnie.

I wanted her in my life. Hell, I even wanted her children in my life.

Which was why I’d taken Cody to school that day despite her assuring me I didn’t have to.

It was also why I’d thrown Conleigh’s name at the head of circulation and asked her to find room in her department for Conleigh to work part-time.

I pushed through the door to the break room and immediately my gaze honed in on Winnie.

She was leaning her backside against the counter, her face lost in thought.

The moment the sound of the door registered to her, she looked up, and her face broke out into a smile before she was running toward me.

“I thought you weren’t going to make it?” she questioned, rubbing her face on my uniform shirt.

I rumbled something deep in my throat and wrapped my arms around Winnie’s upper body and head, pulling her in a little tighter as I said, “Didn’t think I was going to, either. However, your favorite ex-husband took over my area for me so I could grab a quick bite to eat.”

Winnie leaned her head back and stared at me with a small smile on her face. “Favorite ex-husband. He could also be labeled as ‘biggest asshole ex-husband,’” she pointed out.

I laughed as I dropped my lips to hers, and she gladly took the kiss.

I felt her hand tighten on the loop of my belt at the small of my back, and I drew in a breath.

“You think you can run with me to Tommy’s office? I have something I want to show you,” I murmured against her lips.

She pulled back and away as she nodded once.

My eyes trailed down her scrub top, and I barely contained the grin that threatened to turn my lips up.

“Cold?”

She punched me in the chest, and I grunted.

“Ow!” I said, rubbing at the hurt with two knuckles.

“You wouldn’t have even felt that if you were wearing your Kevlar vest,” she pointed out.

That I knew.

Although, there was nothing I could do about it. Not without having the money for me to do it.

One day I’d get one, but for now, I’d continue to live like I was living.

I tugged on Winnie’s hand and said, “I spoke with the treasurer about it like you asked. They’re going to try to locate the funds.”

Winnie stayed at my side while I unlocked the door to Tommy’s office and then looked around curiously as I pushed it open and flipped the light on.

“What are you…”

The door to the office was kicked shut, relocked, and then up against Winnie’s back in a matter of moments.

“Steel,” she gasped. “What are you…”

I took her mouth then, tangling my tongue with hers, forcing her jaw up to take more of me.

“Steel,” she gasped. “What are you…”

She tried to repeat the same words when I let her up for air, but I just shook my head.

“But…”

I shoved my hand up the outside of her shirt and fisted her bra strap with my hand.

“Tommy Tom won’t come in,” I told her, moving my lips down the length of her neck. “And if you don’t focus, we’re going to have to stop what we’re doing.”

“What are we doing?”

“We’re about two pants and a set of panties away from fucking.”

“You’re not wearing underwear?”

I grinned. “I had to change my pants at work because a suspect thought it’d be funny to take a piss on himself—which then ended up on me when I had to tackle him to the ground.”

Her face went pinched. “Gross.”

“Gross,” I agreed, then started to work her shirt up over her head.

She willingly allowed me to remove it, then went ahead and did the hard work by shucking her shoes, and then her pants as well as panties.

The only thing she had left on was her bra and her socks.

She looked fucking adorable.

“Pick me up,” she ordered.

That adorableness turned to sexiness in a blink of an eye.

“Yes, ma’am,” I teased, leaning down.

She threaded her arms around my neck and I lifted her up so that her face was level with mine.

“Don’t put that pussy on my pants,” I ordered. “I can’t walk around with a stained crotch. I have nothing else to change into.”

She bit her lip as her eyes sparkled. “Then I suggest that you lose the pants.”

I winked and reached between us, slowly unhooking my utility belt and lowering it to the floor before starting in on my pants.

Moments later they were down around my ankles and she was grinding herself down against me.

“Not that I don’t like this,” she said, pressing her lips against my throat, right above where my pulse sped. “But what caused this to come on? You’re usually a stickler for the rules.”

She was right. I was usually fairly adamant about keeping things professional and putting on a good face for my city.

However, today had been bad.

Not only had I had to deal with Mr. Pissy Pants and big black truck girl, but I’d also had to listen to the judge tell me that he thought Lizzibeth and I should go to mediation.

When I’d flat out refused that, he said arbitration might be the only viable alternative.

Which led to me calling Lizzibeth and giving her twenty-four hours to sign the divorce papers, or I would stop playing nice.

My guess was that she’d call my bluff, but I wasn’t bluffing.

I was pissed off, fed up, and I wanted to fuck my woman without a goddamn guilty conscience.

I knew that Winnie didn’t care. She understood. However, I felt wrong fucking her when my almost ex-wife was still in the picture—even if it was from a distance.

“Lizzibeth,” I answered, feeling her stiffen.

“Bitch.”

Then she reached between us, wrapped her small hand around my cock, and then guided it to her entrance.

I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking when I thought I could deny the sexual attraction between the two of us. I must’ve been out of my goddamned mind, that was for sure.

Because the moment she sank onto me, her entire pussy engulfing my cock, I realized how futile my resistance was.

She was what my body craved, and who the hell was I to deny her anything?

“Steel…”

“Had a bad day.” I pronounced that statement by thrusting my cock into her.

Feeling her tighten around me, there was a wave of instant rightness of the act. I knew that this was where I was supposed to be and it made my shitty morning disappear.

Here, inside Winnie, nothing else mattered. Not my very soon-to-be ex-wife. Not work. Not anything. Only her. Only us.

I came here straight from pulling over that bitch in her big truck. The only thing on my mind was erasing my morning.

Winnie was the perfect fucking eraser. My eraser.

She was the only person in my life who brought me peace. My son, my grandchildren, the members of my club—they’re my family, my everything. But they all made demands of me and my time.

Winnie, though?

She didn’t demand anything of me. She listened to me, and she paid attention. She soothed and calmed me. She comforted and cherished me. No one else in my life, past or present, gave me all of that.

Winnie was it—she was the woman I’d been searching for.

“Steel, please.”

I looked into her eyes as I used the strength in my shoulders and arms to slowly slide her up.

I held her there momentarily while she whimpered for my cock, and then I lowered her onto me.

Her mouth curved into an O as I thrust up on the downward glide, filling her with me again.

My cock became more and more sensitive with each drive into her until it throbbed. Slide up. Throb. Glide down. Throb. Slide up, throb, glide down.

Our eyes stayed connected., never once losing sight of each other. At least until I felt her muscles start to tighten around me.

Her pupils dilated, and she lost focus of what was in front of her—me.

This glazed look overtook her, and I watched as she fell apart.

The need I had for her was all consuming, and the fact that she got there with just a few words, a kiss and my cock, ramped up everything I was feeling.

Also knowing that she was there, I loosened the strings on my control.

The come in my balls felt like it boiling. The tight, wet fist of her pussy erased everything but the thought of me coming from my mind.

And then I was. I detonated and emptied myself inside her in three long bursts.

Moments later, we were both breathing hard. I was sweating up a storm, and Winnie was looking at me with amusement in her eyes.

“Not that I mind erasing your bad morning…but what happened to make it bad?” she whispered, smoothing her hand down my bearded cheek.

I grunted something under my breath and patted her legs that were still wrapped around me.

She took the hint and dropped them to the floor.

Pulling out of her, I immediately grinned and winked.

“I’ll get something to clean you up,” I said as I bent down and reached for my pants.

She waited patiently as I tucked myself back inside of my pants and zipped them up.

I snatched a couple tissues off the corner of Tommy Tom’s desk and handed them to her.

She took them and cleaned herself up while I glanced around the office.

I’d never been in here before, which then cracked me up seeing as the first time I was, it was to use it for sex. It didn’t have anything at all to do with the man who the office belonged to.

“What are you laughing at?” Winnie asked, bending over to grab her scrub pants off the floor.

I explained moments later, causing her to grin.

“Yeah,” she snickered. “I’ve never been in here before, either. I actually wondered where he disappeared to sometimes when his wife was around and not working.”

I just shook my head and chuckled as I walked toward her.

She finished slipping her feet into her shoes without tying them and then lifted her face up toward me with a smile.

I dropped one final kiss on her cheek before I said, “Grab those tissues and trash them in the bathroom when you go…I have to go back to work.”

She sighed and then pulled away as far as the door at her back would let her.

“Try to have a better day?”

I shrugged. “Seems like this full moon is fucking with everyone and everything. Not to mention Aaron had the nerve to mention something about it being fucking ‘quiet’ today.”

Winnie started to laugh and reached for the door, twisting the knob and opening it.

I stepped back and allowed her to do so before following her out of it moments later.

She’d just made it to the bathroom, with five minutes to spare, when I stopped her.

“Winnie?”

“Yeah?” She turned, her eyes sparkling.

I opened my mouth to tell her what I was feeling but was interrupted by the mic at my shoulder going off. “Shooting at South and High.”

I sighed and pinched my nose.

“If I make it back in time, I’ll come over for dinner.”

“Is that your way of telling me that you’d like me to cook?” she teased.

But the smile that she’d forced onto her face didn’t meet her eyes. She was worried.

Which then caused a small amount of exhilaration to surge through my veins.

“Yeah, baby,” I said, crowding her into the door and laying one more kiss on her lips. “It is.”

Then I left and didn’t look back.